433 Responses

You're letting your paranoia get away from you. This was an extraordinary situation, requiring extraordinary measures.

Well that's how it rolls. This hysteria via a "routine drug bust" was created with the help of the MSM. I don't recall routine drug busts being routine. I do recall the police however listening to drug info( often given by some other drug taker/user) and relying heavily on that info being truthful. Although a threat of your worthless life being saved from jail by the kind policeman, should definitely make you pass on truthful information, more often than not you will find ( and I suspect the police know this) that most of the info is just to save your own arse and the odd bit of truth thrown in to get off your own charges. Also the threats of planting drugs (courtesy of the drug squad) is known to happen so bullshit info would be preferable to being banged up. Therefore it would be better for the police to be paranoid, than assume any raid on a home would be "routine"

Thank you Kyle, I find that comforting.However, I was just talking to my father in law. He had the misfortune to be right behind a car accident last night, apparently a old chap swerved to avoid a slowing vehicle in front of him in the hailstorm and rolled his van. My father in law did all the right stuff, calling the appropriate services, lifting the van off the guy's arm making sure not to move him etc. When the police arrived the first thing they did was, literally, push the people helping the guy out of the way and telling them to "Stop gawking" then stopped all traffic for two hours My father in law was not alone in thinking the police treated those assisting the victim as if they were guilty of something.The police must change their attitude, we are not the enemy.

Broader than policing, we seem to be witnessing a single failure and demanding wholesale changes in public systems.

There is no way to prevent incidents like this, which thankfully are rare. No amount of intelligence or resourcing can produce completely foolproof results, although lack of resource can cause some unattractive behaviour.

Life involves a certain amount of risk, but it feels a bit crude saying that right now. I guess a discussion like this may help us feel more in control of the situation or come to terms with tragedy, but it does get undignified when there are participants not yet out of harm's way or laid to rest, and little likelihood of similar immediate threat to anyone else.

Just curious, what do you think the police could've done to develop intelligence that Molenaar had firearms?

Firstly, I am not criticising the police for their handling of this situation. Nor am I saying that legalised cannabis would have magicked up some intelligence about Molenaar's weaponry. Of course it wouldn't.

But what I am pointing out is that the current cannabis laws result in a systemic diversion of resources away from crimes where there are real or potential victims. IOW, the police would have more resources available to actually develop intelligence systems that could result in the kind of intelligence that would have prevent this incident from occurring the way that it did.

Also, I would suspect that many current cannabis users who are currently wary of the police (because they fear prosecution), would be more inclined to assist police intelligence efforts if they in no danger of persecution for responsible cannabis use.

I have a close friend who was a cop for twenty years, he left the job because of the same reasons I have mentioned above, that the general police attitude to the public left a lot to be desired.The merging of the traffic police with the main force was a public relations disaster.

Therefore it would be better for the police to be paranoid, than assume any raid on a home would be "routine"

As I've observed above, the police simply do not have the resources to treat every warrant execution as high-risk. High-risk means a lot of cops, all with firearms, and an incident controller who's away from the scene and keeps a strategic eye on it all. It means predetermined channels and modes of communication, assembly areas and safe forward points. It's a lot of work, and just isn't feasible for every operation. Even American cops don't treat every search warrant as a high-risk activity, and being greeted with the wrong end of a gun barrel just inside the door is much more of a risk there than it is here.

I have a close friend who was a cop for twenty years, he left the job because of the same reasons I have mentioned above, that the general police attitude to the public left a lot to be desired.

And a family friend of ours, who left after a number of incidents - he was talking to a boy sitting by the road, and his senior officer kicked him in the face. He spoke out, the officer was sanctioned (although not prosecuted like you or I would be for kicking someone in the face), and after that his workplace was unbearable. There are recriminations for breaking the code.

All of which is terrible, because it helps no-one.

Also, I would suspect that many current cannabis users who are currently wary of the police (because they fear prosecution), would be more inclined to assist police intelligence efforts if they in no danger of persecution for responsible cannabis use.

Not directly, but I know a couple of women who have dated serving policemen, another friend has an ex-cop as a colleague, my ex-wife's best friend is a (somewhat famous) former policewoman and I have an ex-cop as a (gulp) boss.

I can think of one thing that could lead to police officers mingling less with "general society", and that is shift work. When I was a weather forecaster, I tended to socialise mostly with other meteorologists, and to a lesser extent people such as nurses, doctors and pilots, simply because we were all out of sync with the usual social calendar. There may be other forms of camaraderie that keep cops toegether and perhaps apart from wider society, but something as simple as working hours and lifestyle can make a difference.

Firstly, I am not criticising the police for their handling of this situation.

I hadn't noticed anyone criticising the police (other than that Dexter) for this situation in particular, which I deduce Nick Kearney has noticed also, but I could be wrong (what the hey).Still the tabloidization of what sounds like a decent cop going about with his duties has once again dragged up questions that we should put to the Minister thus giving her the chance to excuse her part played in the circus that evolved. While I don't see much change, dreams are free.

I can think of one thing that could lead to police officers mingling less with "general society", and that is shift work.

Very true. My observation of career fire fighters is that they often don't socialise much with "outsiders". Having a rigid shift schedule ensures that they're surrounded by people with whom they have a close bond, who're also free at odd times, and that discourages interaction outside those circles.There's also the issue of being able to talk about your job without the other people passing judgement, positive or negative. My personal experience is that there's very much a "wow" factor associated with telling people that you're involved in that kind of job, and eventually it gets a bit tired. You don't really want to be trying to explain that, actually, the job is pretty nondescript and boring a lot of the time. Hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror, as they say. If you associate with others who're in the same line of work, you're spared that.

there's very much a "wow" factor associated with telling people that you're involved in that kind of job, and eventually it gets a bit tired.

That kinda puts a damper on their ad campaign then."Better Work Stories" ? "I'm sorry, I'm tired of talking about it"I have friends who work in backroom IT who still manage to meet up with a large cross section of friends and get into riveting tales of ip Addresses and router configurations of breathtaking adventures in fault logs and memory dumps.

Top cop just said on RNZ that Jan had a lifetime licence and collectors licence too, but they expired in 2002 as the change of systems came into being.

He presumably got all his nutty toys legally and kept them through a failure to police the changes. So far beyond intelligence this was a serious error of administration, something that a registar would fix.

What if Jan (or some other future nutjob) is psychotically insane, but not actually as dumb as a rock?

So, instead of leaning out of the window screaming 'come on coppers!' with a bulls-eye stencilled on his forehead in his dead mothers lipstick, maybe, just maybe, he turns off the lights and draws the curtains and lies on the floor most of the time making it just a little bit harder for him to see out and shoot out, but extremely difficult for anyone to see in.

And, maybe, just maybe, this nutjob who has spent months fortifying his house has cut loopholes in the walls which he can shoot out of, but which are, like, rilly rilly difficult for the police sniper teams to even see into, let alone shoot into.

So, your elite snatch squad is all ready to go and grab the body. They're lined up by the wall all ready to go. All they need is confirmation from the sniper team that they've taken him out - 'shoot on first sight' as you put it.

And they wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Just like they did in Napier, in fact.

I guess it's possible that things might not have gone according to plan. Do you think it's possible that things could have gone according to plan?

He presumably got all his nutty toys legally and kept them through a failure to police the changes. So far beyond intelligence this was a serious error of administration, something that a registar would fix.

No, it wouldn't fix it. It might've fixed it if a register had existed prior to the change, but it wouldn't have fixed things retroactively. He didn't get a new licence, so he certainly wouldn't have registered his firearms if a register had been created subsequent to the implementation of the new licensing scheme. In all likelihood he wouldn't even have registered all his firearms before the change, since it sounds like he acquired them with somewhat nefarious intent in the first place.What this does mean is that the police should be going back and looking for all persons who held firearms licences, finding the ones who let their licences lapse, and then doing a little foot work to see if they've disposed of their firearms as was required. There was even an amnesty, as I recall it, to get people who weren't going to pay for a new licence to pass their firearms into police hands rather than disposing of them on the black market.

I hadn't noticed anyone criticising the police (other than that Dexter) for this situation

I assume you'll be able to show where I have criticised any officer of the law or the police in general.

I have not called into question the courage or competence of any group or individual. I have condemned the policy that was lauded by Russell in his blog. It is a bad policy to extend to a criminal any right to life when an officer of the law is lying shot in a driveway.

Policy should be that every attempt is made to rescue the officer and the risk should be placed upon the criminal hampering such efforts.

Steve, the novelty of telling the "Better Work Stories" wears off. And your friends get sick of hearing them, unless you happened to make the news. After all, who's really that interested when the average day looks like "I had 10 burg reports to get filed, so I spent three hours at my desk doing those. Then we were sent to backup MNI-2 at a reported dommie, but that turned out to be just a guy watching a movie really loud. Man, I want a home theatre rig like that! After a late dinner we got out on patrol, but it was pretty quiet. One suspicious car that was actually some poor old girl who'd broken down and was too scared to walk to her house, so we gave her a lift around the corner to home, and then we got sent to a 1V and spent two hours doing traffic control while SCU took photos and measurements and shit."